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The first hint Laobai, 34, received that his position at short-video app Kuaishou might be at risk was when a 35-year-old colleague was sacked.
“I was both shocked and anxious. I realised that our situations were very similar, and the same thing could soon happen to me,” said Laobai, using his nickname to avoid repercussions from his former employer.
Just months from his 35th birthday, the developer was dismissed, another victim of the group’s reorganisation known internally as “Limestone”. Kuaishou is pushing out junior workers in their mid-30s, according to five people with direct knowledge of Limestone, including current and former employees. Laobai was told his termination was part of the company’s overall redundancy programme. Kuaishou declined to comment.
The so-called curse of 35 has long plagued workers across white-collar professions, with older staff widely perceived as being less willing to put up with long working hours because of responsibilities at home.
As China’s tech sector reels from Beijing’s crackdown and an economic slowdown, tens of thousands of jobs have been cut over the past several months and older workers are seen as particularly vulnerable. Technology companies have made no secret of favouring younger and unmarried workers.
“Ageism in the tech sector is a big problem. There is a perception that older workers don’t keep up with the latest technological developments, that they don’t have energy to keep up the hard work and that they’re too expensive,” said Beijing-based labour lawyer Yang Baoquan.
While China’s labour law prohibits employers from discriminating on the grounds of attributes such as ethnicity, gender and religion, it does not explicitly refer to age. But Yang said some had interpreted the law more broadly as prohibiting discrimination against older people, meaning employers would not explicitly cite age as a reason for dismissal.
Chinese tech executives have long publicly voiced their preference for younger workers. In 2019, Tencent president Martin Lau announced a plan to reshuffle 10 per cent of the company’s managers, saying “their jobs will be taken up by younger people, new colleagues who may be more passionate”. Baidu chief Robin Li in an internal letter — also made public in 2019 — announced the company’s plan to “become more youthful by promoting more workers born after 1980 and 1990”.
This thinking is deeply embedded across most tech companies.
“Between 20 and 30, most people are full of energy. You are more willing to march forward and sacrifice yourself for the company. But once you become a parent and your body starts ageing, how are you going to keep up with the 996 schedule?” said a former sales manager at Meituan, referring to the Chinese tech sector’s infamous work routine of 9am to 9pm, six days a week.
ByteDance, which owns video app TikTok, and ecommerce giant Pinduoduo have some of the youngest recruits among Chinese tech companies, data suggests. The average age of their workers is 27, according to the latest figures from the professional networking site Maimai from 2020. The average age of staff at Kuaishou is 28 against 33 at ride-hailing app DiDi, Maimai data also suggests. The average age of the worker in China is 38.3, according to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions.
This trend has become only more entrenched with progressive waves of lay-offs in the tech sector, driven by an economic slowdown and regulatory concerns.
Kuaishou, whose share price has fallen by 88 per cent since it listed in Hong Kong in 2021, cut its overall headcount by 16 per cent between December 2021 — when it had 28,000 people on staff — and June 2023, according to its latest financial report.
“The tech sector expanded too quickly before the pandemic, and then the government crackdowns began. We’re now cutting the expensive management layer,” said one manager at another internet company.
The curse of 35 is a source of major anxiety for tech workers. A survey by recruitment platform Lagou Zhaopin last year found that 87 per cent of programmers were “seriously worried” about being fired or being unable to find a new job after turning 35.
After losing their jobs, over-35s find it difficult to find new employment, said Yang.
Many departments in China’s civil service restrict entrance examinations to those under 35. Job adverts for staff in the service sector, including restaurants and hotels, also want younger applicants. This has left little recourse for tech employees in their 30s who want to change careers or find temporary casual employment between postings.
A 38-year-old programmer recently laid off from a major ride-hailing group said finding new work was tough. “The job market is very bad, even worse than last year, especially for old engineers like me,” he said.
Ultimately, Laobai counts himself among the fortunate few.
“I have two children and my wife is no longer working. At the time another tech company was hiring for just one managerial spot, and I was lucky to get it. If not for this opportunity, I would be jobless like so many ex-Kuaishou employees.”
Additional reporting by Ryan McMorrow and Nian Liu in Beijing
Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
